Release date:
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June 1, 2012
|
Director:
|
Prabhudeva
|
Cast:
|
Akshay
Kumar, Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Paresh Ganatra, Nassar, Yashpal Sharma
|
Going by the sympathetic messages I received when I tweeted that I was watching Rowdy Rathore yesterday – a couple of weeks after its release – I assume I will be royally trolled for this review. Well, say whatever you wish in response, but make darned sure you “don’t angry me”!
All
right, all right, I wanted an excuse to throw that line into this write-up.
Because I had fun watching RR despite
its loudness, the indifference to its heroine and evident disinterest in
smoothening out its rough patches although that could have been easily done. On
the bright side, this is Akshay back in his groove, aiming at that combination
of action and comedy with which Salman Khan’s Dabangg hit the jackpot in 2010. Director Prabhudeva’s outing with
Akki is not as cohesive or as well-thought-out as Abhinav Kashyap’s Salman-starrer,
but there’s enough here to make Rowdy
Rathore an enjoyable – even if illogical – film.
The
story is so 1970s/’80s Bollywood that it’s easy to forget that RR is a remake of a 2006 Telugu hit
called Vikramarkudu.
Two men who
look identical – save for the difference in the shape of their respective moustaches
– suddenly find their paths crossing. One is a small-time crook and clown-about-town,
Shiva (Akshay Kumar). The other is Vikram Rathore (Akshay again), an upright and
unsmiling cop in a small town that is being terrorised by the politician Baapji
(Nassar). Shiva falls for Paro (Sonakshi Sinha) and promises to give up thieving,
but then plans one final con job that brings into his life a little girl who insists
he’s her dad.
It’s a story with all the ingredients for an
old-style Bollywood potboiler: a premi, a premika, a hamshakal, imaandaari, a menacing villain with ominous hangouts, some
good ol’ naach-gaana and dishum dishum and some throwaway lines. Shiva’s “don’t angry me”
is in the promos. When a bad guy inadvertently gets hanged by the belt of a
policeman he had just humiliated, Vikram Rathore tells us that even the uniform
of an honest officer does its duty. Clever dialogues flow as freely as punches
and blood. And the songs Chinta ta chita chita and Aa re pritam pyaare are catchy and well choreographed (but of course,
it’s Prabhudeva!); the latter is visually lovely too.
What
works for Rowdy Rathore is that it
does not take itself seriously and does not demand that we do either. That’s why
it’s possible to pardon the film its many transgressions. Chief among them is
the fact that it seems to forget many of its own gimmicks. For instance, Shiva initially
enjoys rewinding to scenes he likes. No kidding, he actually touches an
imaginary knob on the side of his head and turns back time. This gimmick is soon
discarded for the next one. Shiva uses a particular hand movement in the
choreography of Chinta ta chita chita a few times as a sort of signature. Paro too
repeats it on a couple of occasions to refer to Shiva … but this too does not run
all the way through. We are briefly introduced to Shiva’s hatred for kids, but
once the little girl comes into his life, the animosity is gone in a few short
scenes – it’s as though the writer inserted it in as an additional element much
after the entire script had been written, to add drama to the child’s entry,
but then didn’t know how to carry it through effectively.
In short, there’s much laziness and silliness in
the writing and telling of this story. Rowdy Rathore takes us back to a time in Bollywood when medicine
was not really a science. Remember when docs would feel a woman’s pulse and
say, “Yeh toh maa banne waali hai”? In RR, water droplets falling on a man’s head prevent
brain haemorrhage! The film also mindlessly chucks songs into the mix not
caring whether they match the mood of the moment; and equally mindlessly chucks
a couple of star guest appearances into a song, which is all very well if you
have a stunning Kareena Kapoor going Chinta ta chita chita, or Prabhudeva showing us his incredible moves,
but why did the director ask a Tamil superstar completely unknown to north
Indian audiences to appear in the same song? Vijay deserves better than to have
viewers asking, “Yeh kaun hai, yaar?” as did several people in the hall where I
watched Rowdy Rathore.
And don’t get me started on the treatment meted out
to Sonakshi Sinha who: (a) looks young enough to be Akshay’s daughter, (b)
disappears for long periods while the hero goes about the business of being a
hero, and (c) seems to only serve the role of a decoration piece whose kamar Shiva lusts after. All this could have been
excused since Rowdy Rathore does not pretend to be anything but an Akshay
Kumar vehicle with everyone else relegated to the background, but Shiva leering
at Paro and saying “Mera maal” was downright offensive!
When I watched that scene, I was actually glad the
heroine is hardly around. Because the rest of Rowdy Rathore is surprisingly entertaining despite its flaws. Unlike
the directors of Salman’s Bodyguard and Ready, Prabhudeva thankfully does not seem to worship Akshay.
There’s even a point at which a woman asks why Shiva thinks he’s so hot considering
that he does not have SRK’s charm, Hrithik’s looks, Aamir’s cuteness or Salman’s
body. Nice to know that Akshay can laugh at himself. Nice to know too that
Akshay can still bash up large groups of baddies in style, goof around and
display impeccable comic timing, all in the same film to such good effect that
even a cynic like me came away smiling. The high point of RR is Shiva impersonating Vikram Rathore, adding a
swagger to the deadly serious cop’s personality. This part of Rowdy Rathore is so hilarious that it almost made me forget
everything that angried me in the film!
Rating (out of five): **3/4
CBFC Rating: U/A
Language: Hindi
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